You may have a point, Kevin.
I know when I studied some of the chronology it was hard to fit some of things into the short time generally accepted -- especially in the period from the flood to Abraham.

The Masoretic text has all the patriarch's after the flood starting their families while in their 30's
While the Samaritan text and the Septuagint list these same patriarch's as being in their 130's when they started their families. The Samaritan and Septuagint list of ages makes more sense. Especially since Terah (Abraham's father) is stated as having been 131 when Abraham was born.

But I would be cautious about pushing it too far back.

I tend to be more moderate then the more conservatives, but don't have the background to make up my own mind. I trust the conservative compromise with Elder Pierson's "'about' 6,000 years" that goes up to 21,000 years. I've heard a little about the more moderate view which seems to go back to around 60,000. Some professors I respect saw creation week being sometime with in the last ice age.

I understand that creation week was sometime within human memory, that Adam and Eve and the genealogies in the Bible are real people.

Some of the issues pointed out in class includes that the passages of the ancient genealogies are so old and has obviously been updated as languages grew and changed, so that they are some of the most difficult passages to translate. Apparently the different options can go back to 10,000 or 12.000 years. Additional difficulties include that we use the classical Greek genealogies which include everyone. However, ancient genealogies do not do this and we are wrong trying to put a Greek idea from many centuries later on to our older genealogies. Ancient Genealogies tended to pick out the most important people within the family line, skipping less important people. Also, at times in history there are several generations where the first born son is named after the paternal grandfather. Thus, there were two names repeated over several generations, but in a genealogical list the two names are only mentioned once.

These three things gives us more flexibility in our "about" 6,000 years. I agree that we don't want to go back too far. We need to be fair to the Biblical record, and the Biblical record would allow for these three issues: The difficulty in translating the ages, that genealogies prior to classical Greece skipped generations, and that we don't know how often there were first born sons named after their paternal grandfather and thus the two names listed only once.

While in our schools these are pointed out, there are too many lay members who are not aware of our Adventist flexibility in the "about". And I fear that we have people who run into trouble with the strict 6,000 years that when they can't fit the strict 6,000 years they throw out the baby with the bathwater.

Some Christians are embracing evolution, because they are not embracing the Word of God.

To embrace Creation as it is written in Genesis 1-2 means acknowledging God as our Maker.
Acknowledging that He is worthy of our obedience and worship.
Acknowledging that He knows what is best for us.

The big thrust to steer away from a literal creation is done to supposedly free people so that they are indebted to no one, they need not worry about a higher power they need to answer to, what they do is up to them, what they think is important to prioritize is up them.

Bible tells us God created the world in six literal day and night "days".
Without God there is only chaos and hopelessness. Without God people do not advance, they sink.

As to how old the earth is?

The Bible doesn't tell us that. It only gives a lot of genealogies which we can calculate and get an idea as to how many years have gone by since man's fall. Those genealogies come up with approximately 6000 years. But even those genealogies raise questions and leave us only with an "about" idea as to the age of the world.

What about Ellen White's comments on the 6000 years.
At least twenty-five such statements can be found. Another sixteen times she refers to the time lapse between creation and Christ as about 4000 years.'

Interestingly she makes statements like:


EGW Research Documentary comments on the 6000 years.
When Ellen White gave careful review to The Great Controversy in 1910, preparatory to some revision, she did not change the seven 6000 year statements or the three 4000 year statements in that book. Other points were carefully studied and adjusted so that, as she noted, the ?truths it contained were stated in the very best manner, to convince those not of our faith that the Lord had guided and sustained me in the writing of its pages? (Letter 56, 1911). What an opportune time to eliminate or modify the ten statements so out of line with the thinking of many of ?those not of our faith.? But there was no change!

Our observation (white estate's comments) is that her mention so many times of the age of the earth as about 6000 years is more than a casual one. Throughout her life Ellen White wrote about this time period consistently. The same is true for her 4000 year statements regarding the time from creation to Christ. If it was grossly in error, why did not the Lord correct her position? We believe it was because it was a right one. The age of the earth from creation week to the present is only understood correctly in light of the Bible record.

About 6000, nearly 6000, well nigh 6000, over 6000, for 6000.
But always around 6000.

I really don't think we should join the infidel geologists who claim the world has existed tens of thousands of years.

Now it seems the planet itself in its "without form and void" state may be older.
But the earth created is "about 6000" years old.

We may be in the "tarrying time" --
As in 2 Peter 3:9 The Lord is not slack in His promises as men call slackness, but is longsuffering, not wishing that any should perish.

It could have been 6000 years old already in 1888, but the call went out to hold back the final time of trouble because God's people were not yet sealed (See Rev. 7:2-3)
We could very well be living on borrowed time!
People have been calculating the 6000 years as long as I can remember. No one knows when the count hit 6000.
Seems the 4000 years keep getting shorter, while the 2000 years get pushed further into the future (because obviously we are still here)

BUT WHAT ABOUT THE ICE AGE AND ALL THAT?

There's no denying there was an ice age. But probably just one.
https://www.icr.org/article/ice-age-volcanism/
Suggests this ice age took place as an after result of the flood and lasted for several hundred years.
Is our so called "global warming" just a last remnant of the receding ice age???

Reminds me again of 2Peter 3:4-7
Where it says the scoffers main argument against Biblical prophecy is: "all things continue as they always have" they are willingly ignorant that the world was overflowed with water. And studiously avoid any connection with their geological findings as happening rapidly due to the enormous cataclysmic flood and its after effects.

I think what adds to the confusion is not the distinction between the age of the earth and the age since creation. At creation, the earth was already in existence.

As pointed out most of Mrs. White's quotes were "About 6000, nearly 6000, well nigh 6000, over 6000, for 6000" and same for the 4000 quotes. Most of these were what became a general term for her for the scope of the great controversy. Now, it has been pointed out that the original manuscript was more flexible in the numbers and that her editors changed the numbers to make a consistent either 6000 or 4000 depending on the context. It has also been pointed out that when she was updating her writing into the book Patriarchs and Prophets, there was a manuscript that was stronger towards the idea of a 6000 year old world, but as she was revising, she simply drew a line through this quote and initialed her cross-out.

A well known quote is where she raises that the critics say that there is too much to fit into 6000 years. However, a careful reading of her answer is not a strong endorsement of the 6000 years, but a simple statement that we do not know enough about science or the Bible.

Then when I was at the Seminary, and please forgive me for forgetting the reference, but we were required to go into the White Estate office on campus and actually hold in our hands a manuscript she wrote that was to be discussed in the next class. This statement down plays a strict 6000 years and says that what ever we pick for the age of the earth to just make sure that it is fair to the Biblical record.

In addition to the above, Mrs. White also tried to teach us was visions do and don't do for her, and how she wanted her writings to be used. Part of this was that she is making applications for our day. When she was asked any question about exegesis, her tendency was to either ignore them, say that those questions are not her job but our job that the Holy Spirit would show them just as soon as He would show her; and she seems to me to have been baffled that we want to simply ask her for "THE ANSWER," She loved visiting a museum in Europe with a Seventh-day Baptist friend, and she records her excitement to look at all the archeological discoveries and how she wished that she could have just stayed and continue to study them, but she needed to go to do her ministry in helping with the publishing and other tasks in Europe.. Another response would be to simply say things such as "My writings are not to be used to answer questions such as "What is the meaning of the Daily" Could her responses to not changing those 4000 and 6000 year quotes be that she wanted us to take her guidance as a whole in how she wanted and how she did not want her writings to be used?

A couple of you posted above about the time in which the world was "without form and void" and was already here before creation week. This also must be kept in mind. Neither the Bible nor Mrs. White saw it important to spend much time on this beyond the fact that there is that period, In the new Bible Commentary on Genesis, Dr. Doukhan points out that while focused on the 7 days of the creation of this world, that the poem itself has at least three layers: First is the idea that God was the creator of the entire universe. Second, the creation of living in a universe dealing with the issues of the great controversy, and third, of course the creation of our earth. The Bible and Mrs. White give hints that what ever was here was playing a role for Lucifer, the other angels and the rest of the universe to deal with Lucifer's questions, placing the issues of God working with the great controversy being a universal issue before we showed up. We think why does not God do something that would undoubtedly know that He is real. But God wants our decisions to be based on faith, not force. The angels saw God, but still questioned what God's nature is. We are told that God worked long with Lucifer. We are in our time to evaluate the evidence and make choices based on faith. Over the time the earth was without form and void, the rest of the universe needed to deal with the same questions we are dealing with. Eventually, two things happened: First, the two sides of the great controversy formed (they did not close their probation until the cross, but they made a choice to side with God). The second, what ever was here ended up being total chaos. It was not until these two events took place that God moved beyond a staying in the background, by saying "Let there be light" and Doukhan points out that the light was not only the brightness, but that the universe was entering into a new phase of light being revealed about this being called "God". Th angels and unfallen did not have it any easier than we do.

There are feast keepers who view that lucifer created the failed chaos, then God stepped in to show how to do it right. Is that what you are suggesting? Kind of like multiple creation events?

A fairly common theory amongst creationists (not flat earthers) is that Lucifer was so jealous that God would not allow him into the inner council to help plan creation, that when God started to create the earth, Lucifer started the war in heaven and during that war, he and his angels destroyed whatever was already created on this earth.
Genesis takes up the story after that initial outbreak of war was finished, the earth was void and without form, Satan is restricted (cast down), and God creates this world in six days and all the sons of God rejoice!

That can easily fit into Ellen White's depiction of things before creation as well!

Also may explain why there is an asteroid belt circulating the sun between Jupiter and Mars.
Was there once a planet there that was destroyed in that war? Speculation of course.
It's obvious we do NOT know what happened in the eternity before God created this earth and what this "war in heaven" all entailed.

Yet EGW never refuted or changed ANY of her twenty-five references to the earth being "about" 6000 years old statements.
However, we also need to take note that she never endorsed or taught the "week of time (6000+1000=1 prophetic week)" theory of J.N.Andrews (and other Adventist writers) either.
That theory has led to much time setting, and was never taught by Ellen White.

She frequently warned against attempts to calculate the time for Jesus' coming.
So she never endorsed or taught using the 6000 year idea as a prophetic time line to calculate Christ's coming.



I think this is the statement -- is it her answer.




To me that statement confirms she was not convinced by the critics to reject the idea the earth is ABOUT 6000 years old. She obviously was not buying the critics statements even though she herself didn't have the scientific knowledge to refute them.



She warned against so called science when it led away from the Bible.

So the mistake people make is thinking she taught the 6000 + 1000 years as a prophetic timeline and that Christ would come when the year 6000 was reached, which would be followed by the millennium. No, she did not teach "the week of seven thousand years". Though she did not correct those who did, either.


While I see room for reasons to believe earth since it's creation is a bit older that 6000 years, I personal would keep that in a flexibility of several 100 years not tens of thousand of years. To me, those teachers who try to extent earth's time to 10,000 or even 21,000 is to soften students up and open the door to theistic evolution, trying to push the time apart to squeeze theistic evolution into the picture. Which is not where I wish to go.

Indeed scientists even today do NOT know enough about science or the Bible to cast away the about 6000 year statements.

Things can happen rapidly, which scientist say take thousands or even millions of years. Mt St Helen gave remarkable evidence that of geological formations happening in days, that scientists thought take millions of years.